Mushroom stroganoff baked potatoes recipe

One of the ingredients that doesn’t work well with baked potatoes is meat – it seems to overwhelm the potato, or just steals its thunder (unless you’re using a sauce made with mince). This stroganoff delivers a meatiness that is far more successful.  

If you think making a twice-baked potato and then adding a topping is too much work, you can simply split the potato, mash the flesh with butter in its case, throw some dressed baby spinach leaves between the two halves and pour on the stroganoff sauce.

Timings

Prep time: 30 minutes

Cook time: 1 hour 20 minutes

Serves 

2

Ingredients

• 2 large potatoes
• sea salt flakes, to sprinkle
• 165g spinach, thick stalks removed (prepared weight)
• 15g butter, plus more if needed
• ¼ onion, finely chopped
• 400g chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced
• 1 garlic clove, grated to a purée
• ¼ tsp sweet paprika, plus extra for sprinkling on before serving
• 5 tbsp crème fraîche
• finely chopped parsley, to serve

Method

1. Heat the oven to 210C/200C fan/gas mark 6½.
2. Wash the potatoes and pierce a few times with the tines of a fork. Sprinkle sea salt flakes on top. 
3. Set the potatoes on the bars of the oven shelf. Bake until they’re completely tender, about an hour.
4. Meanwhile, put the spinach leaves in a medium saucepan with the water that clings to them after washing. 
5. Set over a medium to low heat and cook until the spinach has wilted.
6. Drain, spread the spinach out to help it cool, then put handfuls between two dinner plates and squeeze out the excess moisture. You need to do this well. 
7. Chop the spinach finely and season.
8. Melt 5g of the butter in a frying pan and cook the onion until it’s soft. 
9. Put the spinach and onion into a bowl, season and leave to cool.
10. When the potatoes are tender, split them down the middle and, using a spoon, take out the flesh and mash it with the spinach and onion. Leave the potato skins intact.
11. Taste and see if you need to add more seasoning, or more butter (if the mixture is dry). 
12. Pack the mash back into the potato skins, piling it high. 
13. Put these back into the oven on a baking tray for about 15 minutes.
14. Meanwhile, melt the rest of the butter in the same frying pan and fry the mushrooms in batches. It will look as if there’s a lot of them, but they do shrink. 
15. Empty each batch into a bowl when they’re ready and then return them to the pan. 
16. Add the garlic and paprika and cook with the mushrooms for 2 minutes, then add the crème fraîche.
17. Heat this to just under boiling, and taste to check the seasoning and the paprika content. 
18. Take the potatoes out of the oven. Serve with the mushroom stroganoff spooned over the top. 
19. Scatter with the parsley and sprinkle each half with a pinch of paprika.